Regulators for Ice Diving

[Jeff Toorish]

There are two regulators that I find absolutely terrific for ice and extreme cold water diving:

• The Aqualung Legend Glacia is environmentally sealed and has three built in heat exchangers that warm the air you breath even in the coldest water. This has become my default single tank reg and I can tell you it is beautifully designed and incredibly rugged. I have actually tried to freeze up this regulator unsuccessfully.

• The Apeks XTX 100 is my choice for doubles because of its very clever ergonomic design. The XTX100 is also environmentally sealed. I've never had one of these freeze even in the coldest waters. They are as solid as any regulator I have ever seen and breathe beautfully.
  Both of these regs are perfect for all kinds of diving, from caribbean reefs to under the ice.

Jeff

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Oceanic Delta 3 or GT3 with cdx5 first stages. One thing that I also discovered when taking my ice class last year is that with some AL regs turning the IP down to 128-130 helps. They've been doing this for the 20 or so years that they've been teaching the course. One note on this is that the dives are never deeper than 50 ft (quarry bottoms out) and some regs MAY breathe a bit stiffer. I had mine set for the usual 140 and they were fine. Can't wait til February to do it again!

 

[Davidstealey3]

mares also designed a second stage made out of plastic and other blends for ice diving. dont know the name off hand but it has NTT ( nano thermal technology ). dont know how the price compares to metal bodies but it might be worth looking into.

just for S***s and giggles,they have made a full carbon fiber body second stage that i had my hands on. nice and light.

 

[james croft]

I have used the US Diver Artics and they do well as well as a Mares Proton Ice.
I also have had very good luck with the bulletproof Conshelf 14 with an environmentally sealed first stage. The only time I have had it freeze was using one to fill a lift bag in 38 degree water.

If you are really hard core use a double hose reg as they are very tough to freeze by the nature of the design of the reg.

 

[mathauck0814]

lol - not sure 'hard core' is quite the way I'd describe it... more like "getting my feet wet"

hopefully i can balance some amount of technology without splurging entirely on the regulator - ideally i'd rent one, but none of the shops rent ice gear (how odd is that, being that we're in Vermont?).

in any case, thanks for the advice.

 

[martzak]

I used Aqualung Glacia on my ice certification dives...no problems whatsoever.
I inadvertently breathed the reg while on the surface, still, it did not free flow. I have since sold my Glacia, because I had too many regs and needed matching DIN regs for my doubles.
One of my buddies uses glacia and loves it: the fit, the effortless breathing at any depth.
I have been using Oceanic CDX-5 for the past 2 years in waters 38F and colder down to 175ft; never any problems. From my experience, stick with sealed diaphragm reg for cold waters to minimize the risk of free flow. I'm sure some Atomic guys will chime in to tell you how great their regs are in cold water, and that's fine. I have no experience with Atomic regs, so I can't comment on those.

 

[hg frogman]

Thanks Greg for confirming what I was suspecting about Mares cold water regs (I know you use Proton and I prefer Abyss but both are full metal).

To some other posters : beware, it's not only the first stage that matters. For example, the combo Mk17/R395 isn't any good for ice diving.

Cheers
HG

 

[cfdfirediver]

I dive exclusively Sherwood. Never had any issues, warm, cold, ice, deep. All I have ever used. My LDS was all Sherwood for many years, all the instructor use them. And all but the newest PS Teams in the area use Sherwood, (There are 8 in a 50 mile radius). Blizzard and Maximus are the top choice, then Magnum and Brut, Oasis only for warm water and even in the middle of july you won`t find that here!

 

[fencingfish]

I plan on taking an ice diving course this winter and bought my reg knowing that I would be using it in very cold waters. I was debating between the Sherwood blizzard and the Scubapro MK25. Again, lots of metal. I ended up going with the Scubapro. There are also a number of tricks you can utilize to minimize the risk of your reg freezing and free flowing. Traveling with it in the cab of your car rather than the trunk and breathing off it as little as possible on the surface. I'm sure there are other tricks out there, too.

 

[mathauck0814]

I was discussing this with a friend who mentioned that he had a reg that was sealed and so he poured grain alcohol into the first stage and re-sealed it to prevent freezing.

Anyone heard of anything like that? Was definitely news to me.